U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Speaker of the House John Boehner during debt ceiling increase negotiations, 2011 (Photo by Pete Souza, Wikimedia Commons)

The government shutdown may be over for now, but it has widened the divide between political parties in Congress.

Considered a loss for Republicans, the shutdown caused approval ratings for the party to drop.

The shutdown may continue to manifest itself in future elections, particularly for Republican voters who vote for competency, said Dr. Dora Kingsley Vertenten, a Republican professor and political expert at the University of Southern California. She said the disastrous strategy behind the shutdown not only damaged the Republican brand, but also demonstrated incompetency on both sides. 

"In the short-term, the Republicans took a larger beating than the Democrats,” said Kingsley Vertenten. “But both parties will be negatively effected.” 

USC professor and political risk expert Benjamin Graham agreed.

"It is hard to imagine this being good for Republican candidates, but we do know that predictions this far out from an election have a very high margin of error," Graham said.

Kingsley Vertenten said gerrymandering — drawing congressional districts to ensure favorable voting — is to blame for the government gridlock in D.C. This process allows for representatives with low approval ratings to be reelected. Moving forward, she says Washington will have to reconsider the district lines that allowed Congress to become so polarized.  

“We’ve drawn a bunch of very safe districts so those people who are elected in those districts don’t need to negotiate with anyone,” said Kingsley Vertenten. Ideologists on both sides can stay firm in their beliefs, and she says everyone is at fault because no one is communicating with one another. 

Kingsley Vertenten says voters will hold both parties responsible at the national level.

“The long term effect on parties is an operational one,” she said, pointing out that both parties have become polarized and extreme. The current political atmosphere favors the broad middle, she claims, and to attract middle ground voters in the coming elections, both parties will need to change the way they present themselves and their platforms moving forward.

“Clearly the Republican brand has been further diminished. Now, people consider themselves either a conservative or a Republican, no longer both” she said. According to Kingsley Vertenten, many Democrats are also looking at their party differently after the shutdown and saying that Washington isn’t working anymore. 

She does not think the shutdown will affect Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner’s ability to lead the house. According to Kingsley Vertenten, his party will appreciate his leadership because he allowed them to take a stand for principle, but helped them to come to a decision on time. 

The deal drawn up in congress and signed by the president yesterday afternoon “does nothing to address the problem of ongoing lack of cooperation” said Kingsley Vertenten. She says that this agreement gives the president what he wants and pushes any actual decision-making back another few months. Disagreement between the parties in the next few months about where to make budget cuts may lead to another shutdown in January, when the current funding deal ends.  

Reach Staff Reporter Kaitlyn Mullin here.